How to avoid frauds on the internet (Italian law)

In another post we dealt with the fraud made through the check.

Now instead we talk about the fraud that can usually hide in the internet and how to avoid it.

But before entering into it, a brief definition of the notion of fraud according to Italian law is revealed.

Article 640 of the Italian Criminal Code identifies the fraud and consequently the fraudster in who with artifice or deception induces some in error in order to obtain an unjust profit.

Every maneuver realized that is concrete in activities aimed at making the unfortunate fall into error thus allowing the fraudster to achieve an unjust profit that without the specified activities would not have otherwise achieved achieves therefore the hypothesis of fraud.

The ways in which frauds can be made on the Internet are the most varied.

The most common are those made in the field of buying and selling through platforms where everyone can sell their products.

And here the transparency factor assumes a preponderant value.

You can thus go from selling a smartphone at an attractive price to the sale of a more important commodity such as a car.

Regardless of the type of goods offered for sale in order to avoid bitter surprises you will still need to follow some basic rules.

Let’s start from the announcement. If it is too short or provides incomplete information, it is better to contact the seller in order to have a more complete picture of the good that you want to buy.

Almost always then the ads are integrated with photos of the good for sale.

It is important to check if these photos actually depict the product in question or instead, as sometimes happens with reference to photos too “perfect”, have been found on the Internet and adapted.

A search through google (and refer to our previous post “How to do a search on google“) will clarify this aspect and whether it is original photos and not copied.

The selling price can then represent a further element of investigation especially when it comes to a “shockingly” lower price compared to that applied to similar products. Sometimes it happens that to attract the attention of potential buyers apply a super-cost price that actually hides fraudulent maneuvers.

A meeting with the seller to better verify the product you want to buy and its compliance with the announcement would still be the best solution.

Especially since already during the first meeting can mature conditions to refine the purchase but, properly, should be postponed to a later time to allow the parties (and especially the buyer) to reflect and evaluate whether to give course to negotiation.

Another aspect to consider is whether the seller is a natural person or a trader.

In this last opportune hypothesis would be an internet search to get a more complete picture of the type of activity carried out by the seller, if he has a website, where the business is located.

In any case, avoid providing your personal details, tax records and especially the references of your current account as well as a copy of documents to strangers.

Preferably the payments should follow the traceability and so be carried out by bank transfer or even through Paypal. This would allow in case of fraud a faster identification of the fraud by the competent authorities. But not only. If any defects or faults in the goods purchased were found to be easier, it would be the experiment of a claim for damages in civil proceedings.